Lewis being pushed?

The “where will Lewis drive in 2013?” debate has been raging since Eddie Jordan launched the “Mercedes to sign Lewis” story like a grenade between Spa and Monza.

The response of fans and F1 writers has intrigues me. Many are focusing on the pragmatic attitude that no better options to win are open to Lewis so he should stay put. Joe Saward for example saying only Ferrari (27), McLaren (32) and Red Bull (30) have consistently won races since Lewis joined F1; the next best was Brawn (8) who became Mercedes F1 AMG.

From a logical point of view this is incontrovertible. Yet in F1 politics logic doesn’t always prevail. I believe Lewis is being pushed and I’ll explain why.

I know for a fact from friends I have working at McLaren, the group management was extremely frustrated and unhappy with Lewis’ petulant behaviour last year. He had a very public, Balotelli like, “why always me” attitude to his consistent visits to the stewards and of course there was his infamous Ali Gee comment in Monaco.

This year however, Lewis has been “born again”. Smiling and happy for Jenson in Australia, forgiving of his team for short fuelling him for qualifying in Barcelona and until twittergate in Belgium, the model employee driver.

Many have accredited his Zen like re-incarnation to the fact that he now has a Jenson like “bubble” (Lewis’ words), has more of his family around and of course made up with Nicole. I find this not credible, and reading the stream of happy tweets extolling the beauty of life, friendship and the oneness of the universe in general the sceptic in me is smelling a rat. Here’s a couple from the past 2 weeks…

“Never give up. No matter how hard the situation is, always believe that something beautiful is going to happen”, and

“The only person I have to be better than today is the person I was yesterday. So, Past, thanks for all the lessons. To my Future, I’m ready!”

These are endearing and touching sentiments and most eloquent by comparison to anything we’ve ever heard from Lewis before. So if Lewis has undergone a personality conversion from 2011, it is as radical as the light on the Damascus road.

The unfolding events were broadly as follows

Lewis signed with XIX and Simon Fuller (Beckham’s agency) in 2011, and if I were representing him in corporate land last season, I would have been weeping into my foie gras and Cristal champagne.

Any agent worth their salt would need to advise their client that in the year when you are looking for a new contract, the sponsors will be focused on the kind of person being signed to market their brand. Seeing as “Bad Ass Jeans” are not in the XIX portfolio, something clearly needed to change; hence the new and improved 2012 Lewis.

Ron Dennis has been surprisingly vocal on the matter of Lewis and a new contract. He said in a Radio 5 live interview before the summer break there was “no reason Lewis won’t be driving our cars in the future”. However, he added: “I think people get the wrong impression though, as when I last looked at the contract – I was paying him. It’s a question of whether we employ him, not the other way around.”

Earlier in Canada, Dennis told Sky TV, “He [Lewis] is on the end of a contract which was signed at a time when the economy was somewhat different. Now there has to be a balance…He’s very highly paid…He’s certainly paid more than I am.”

I suggest this means, Lewis will be offered less money.

Then when asked what he thought of Dennis’ statements, Lewis replied “It has nothing to do with me particularly, what he [Dennis] says…Martin is my boss.”

This is not a particularly smart response, if you know anything about how McLaren F1 is run.

And then we have twittergate. Lewis puts confidential information up on twitter. One of the McLaren guys was telling me in Monza his phone never stopped beeping with text after text thanking them for their disclosure. Okay, even if the material was not that secretive, the humiliation and ridicule heaped onto many McLaren team members by competitors would be hard to take.

The final piece of the jigsaw is XIX. They have been recruited to make Lewis a mega world brand and more money. It’s not going to look good if all they can get from McLaren is less money than Lewis old fella’ got last time around. Add to this their fee would be smaller, even if Lewis paid them.

So who leaked the Mercedes story? It’s a story that has been given credence; it’s not just a rumour. McLaren have accepted it wasn’t Lewis or his representatives. Mercedes say they’ve said nothing, so who does that leave. The McLaren group?

James Allen, who does not write speculative pieces, recently suggested, that it would not be surprising if McLaren were “tired of the pantomime of life that surrounds Lewis”.

So McLaren may have had enough of Lewis, XIX need to justify their existence by getting him more money, McLaren refuse to pay more – gridlock.

The way I see it is Mclaren are basically saying do you want to race for us or are you here just for the money? If it’s the money then there’s the door goodbye. There’s would be a huge list of people that would be willing to replace him at a reduced cost and less of a PR headache.

All speculation and to be taken with a pinch of salt. McLaren stand to lose more than Lewis Hamilton. Let me remind you and others who try to veil their prejudice with comical Hollywood sci-fi theories. Lewis Hamilton is the last driver to win McLaren a WDC and to win the coveted WCC that has eluded McLaren for what seems like a life time they need a dominant driver like Lewis. Personally I just want to see Lewis Hamilton win many more WDC and I don’t care what team it is. He has more than repaid McLaren and visa-versa. I suggest next time you chat with your so called McLaren “employee” contact you ask why the incompetence and sudden unreliability in their cars, because common sense says with the DNFs Lewis Hamilton has had and to a lesser extent his mediocre team mate Jenson Button that elusive WCC will continue to be a pipe dream.

I couldn’t agree more with your sentiments regarding Lewis the driver. Martin Brundle has commented on how Lewis prepared the tyres perfectly on his outlap for the magnificent pole he delivered in Singapore – a sign he is still getting even better as a driver race by race.

But Lewis has been a challenge for McLaren. They’ve never employed a child protege before, in fact has any F1 team? The life Lewis has led is extraordinary compared to most drivers who’ve had to fight tooth and nail in all life aspects to get an F1 drive – Lewis just had to keep on winning in all the junior formulae and worry about little else. Some feel this has led him to having a very immature and and extremely petulant attitude such that in 2011 this caused significant relationship problems in the team.

Sometimes relationship breakdown just can’t be repaired. Race for race McLaren are the most successful team ever in F1 and as in any sport like football – the club/team are bigger than any one individual – and will be around long after the individual has retired.

And maybe for Lewis, it would do his life experience the world of good to understand what its like to drive for another team.